You Are My Sunshine
by toothlessturtle21
Summary: Zane never was good with human fragility, and watching his father die in front of him didn't do him any favors.


Twenty Years Before The Final Battle

"Father!"

Julien woke up with a start, and hands immediately grabbed at his chest and neck, one splayed to feel the rise and fall of his breathing and the other searching for a pulse. When he found both, he retracted his hands, sobs beginning to wrack his body as Julien pulled him close, used to being woken up by a crying robot in the middle of the night.

"Zane," He began as the android wrapped both arms around him, ear pressed to his heart. "I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere."

He nodded, not convinced, but it seemed to put the inventor slightly at ease.

"We need to find out what's causing all of this, hm?" He asked, more for himself than anything, making a note to possibly look into his son's code to find anything that might give him the anxiety that was keeping him up at night.

Zane hiccupped, eyes screwed shut, plain white sleeping clothes hanging off of his slim frame. The boy was technically eight years old, but he certainly looked like a teenager, which made the sight of him tucked into a weeping ball even more pitiful. Julien sighed, softly petting his son's hair. He had a feeling this was the start of a long uphill battle.

* * *

Nineteen Years Before The Final Battle

Doctor Julien looked up from the medical book he was reading, studying his son as he played with the newly created Falcon. He glanced back down at the section, a painful pull in his heart.

"Separation Anxiety," He mumbled to himself, scanning through the symptoms. "Frequently checking up on a loved one, restlessness, disturbed sleep, nightmares, compulsions, anxiety, guilt..."

He read through the rest of the section silently, his stomach plummeting as he thought of Zane's frequent panic attacks at night as he shook his father awake.

"Zane?" He said with a strained voice, and his son looked up with innocent blue eyes.

"Yes, father?"

"Come here for a moment, we need to discuss something."

* * *

Present Day, Post Final Battle

It was late at night when Doctor Julien felt cold fingers brush his neck. He startled awake, slapping the offending digits in a panic before his eyes adjusted. He cleared away the haze in his to reveal a very disheveled Zane standing two feet away, holding one hand in the other with tired eyes, gaze unfocused yet scared.

"Zane, what are you doing?" He didn't mean for it to be harsh, but Zane still flinched anyway, looking at the floor.

"I was checking your pulse."

He didn't offer any explanation except for that, running fingers through his hair with a sigh.

"My apologies, I will return to bed. Goodnight, father."

Zane went to leave, but the doctor grabbed his sleeve.

"No, no, it's alright, I'm not angry. What's wrong?"

Zane blinked, eyes glistening, and sat down on the edge of the bed. He didn't answer right away, thumbing over the stitching in his pajamas.

"Father?" Zane breathed shakily, eyes fluttering shut. "What am I?"

"What are you?" The Doctor echoed, momentarily confused. "You're my son, of course."

"I have learned through many interactions with humans that they tend to give familial names to things that are not family, such as referring to themselves as 'the mom friend' or calling their idols 'their sons'," Zane wouldn't make eye contact, and Julien's stomach twisted at what he knew was going through his head right now.

The boy had had similar spirals back before all of this ninja business, and it seemed they hadn't ceased. He used to wake his father up in tears more often than not, frantically checking breathing and pulse and performing concussion tests, scared of the fragility of human life. Scared for his father's life. To calm him down, Julien simply complied, indulging his son in unnecessary medical exams. So when he had died... it had seemed logical at the time to spare his son the sure never-ending panic and devastation of seeing his greatest fear come true.

However, judging by Zane now, it hadn't helped at all.

"My point is..." The Ice Ninja continued after a brief pause. "My point is that terms such as calling me your son don't truly mean anything."

The doctor's heart broke a little at seeing his usually calm and put together son visibly trembling after whatever nightmare he had woken up from, and wrapped an arm around the android beside him. Zane looked at him for a moment to judge his potential reaction, and took a shaky breath.

"I'm scared."

"Of what exactly?" Julien soothed, rubbing circles into the distressed ninja's back.

"That I'm not your son. That I'm just a robot who was lucky enough to have an inventor who craved a family too late in his life and had a knack for robotics. That you love me only because I'm functioning."

Zane's voice cracked on the last one, his malfunctioning voice box truly a sign of his system's distress, and Julien pulled the blonde to his chest.

"Zane... How long have you been bottling this up?"

"Ever since we found you in the lighthouse," The Ice Ninja smiled, but it was thin and watery, eyes focused upward on the doctor's own.

"Well, I can say with absolute certainty that I love you because you're Zane. You have grown into something I could not possibly have predicted. Yes, I appreciate that you're in working order, but I love you because of how you like to play with recipes, how you talk with the Falcon, how you play with your friends. Zane, there is no one on the face of Ninjago more fit to be my son than you."

That did the Ice Ninja in. He cuddled up to the inventor's chest with a shudder, partially formed tears now leaking out as he pressed his head over his father's heart. Julien, used to these kinds of breakdowns, gently coddled the android, his own sadness threatening to spill over into platinum blonde hair that he had crafted strand by strand. He had learned long ago that the best way to help the Ice Master through these episodes was to just hold him, as his own problem solving algorithms would slowly bring him down to reality. He had never been able to help debug this part of his son, so it looked like the anxiety was here to stay.

For now though, Zane stayed close to the inventor, afraid that if he let go he would be gone once more.

"...Father?"

"Yes, son?"

"I watched you die."

Silence pervaded the air. The doctor was speechless as Zane gripped onto his pajamas, keeping his ear close to his heartbeat.

"I watched you die," Zane repeated, emotion audible in his voice as he resumed his tears, close to swinging into one of his infamous full-blown panic attacks.

"Please, stay with me Zane, please," Julien coaxed Zane's weary gaze up to him, eyes unfocused. "Focus on my breathing, try and match me."

It was all the inventor could do to hold his son close as he cried, knowing that during the next day the previous night's tears would be replaced by a well-rehearsed mask, his friends would never know how deeply he cared for them, how close he was at all times to breaking down at the mere thought of losing them.


End file.
